It's a horrible moment, the moment when you sit bolt upright at 3am and realise that you've made a critical error. Regular blog readers will know that we encourage writers to check, and check again when they are submitting, but errors still creep through. We've all done it. So here are my top five tips for getting a good night's sleep.
1. Do not rely on spell check. And if you have relied on spell check, double check it. The cautionary tale for this tip belongs to a friend of mine, who discovered she was pregnant shortly after signing up to a gym membership. In pregnancy, she suffered from symphysis pubis disfunction (SPD), a painful condition that relates to the softening of your pubic bones in preparation for birth.
She wrote a letter to the gym, explaining that due to this condition and her pregnancy, she would like to stop her membership. It was a few days later, after she'd sent it, that she looked at the saved document on her computer, only to find that the spell check had replaced symphysis with 'syphilis'... She's not been back to the gym since.
2. Back up your work. A very good friend of mine lost 20,000 words of her novel recently. I've lost about that amount of editing before now. With the little quirks that computers can display, set up a system that you religiously follow, for the day that the blue screen of death appears, and your work is lost forever. Check how often your automatic back up actually backs up. I've set mine to kick in every two minutes or so, as I'm a fast typist and can lose a lot in the default ten minutes.
3. Contact details. This one is mine. I set up my website, linked to it around the web, noticed it was getting a fair few hits, but no inquiries. Only to realise a full month after I set it live, that I had no contact details on there at all.
I've also seen submissions come in with no contact details on the manuscript, and a covering letter with no address and no email. Remember to put your details on the manuscript as well as the letter, just in case they get separated in the process.
4. Wrong draft. This can be as simple as sending version 3, when you have perfected version 4.2, or as awful as sending an email where you've forgotten to replace your pet name for the boss ('Scrooge') with his actual name.
We sometimes get repeat submissions, where an author will send in a more up to date version, and ask us to find and destroy their previous attempt. I have to be honest, if their previous submission has been read, it's unlikely that another stab at it will get looked at. You get one chance, give it all you've got first time.
5. Check your printer has enough ink. There is nothing like settling down to a submission that gets paler and paler, and eventually fizzles out into a heap of blank paper.
What have been your worst moments? And do you have any other cautionary tips?
(Editorial Consultant)
I think I did put my Word to auto-save on a more regular basis than 10 minutes, but I also use a very amazing software called Dropbox. Love it. Whatever I save gets uploaded online where it lives safely and is accessible wherever there's internet connection.
My printing mistake was this... I applied for the Charles Pick Fellowship and realized, only after I mailed my application that I had forgotten to put page numbers on my submission. I'm hoping it won't be so bad since I didn't clip the papers together... (they didn't specify and I thought it best not to assume). So, note to self, pay attention to details more.
:)
I find emailing myself my MS is the best option. I have a separate folder in my email and store it all in there.
It also good because you can see which one is the most recent draft/edit.
I also work off of a USB stick so I can move from place to place and write. Although, if I forget to email it to myself or back it up on my computer, then I would be screwed if I lost it.
So far so good... *crosses fingers*
I use a Macbook Pro, which is brilliant for writing. Its aluminium case ensures survival if dropped down the stairs by my son, which happened only the other week.
It's also lightweight and very portable, more so than a standard laptop, but it does have one major flaw, auto spell check.
When writing, be it online or on Word, the Mac constantly checks your spelling. This, unfortunately, makes me very lazy where spelling is concerned.
Oh, and I need an external hard drive as well.